Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

At the end of her best-selling memoir Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert fell in love with Felipe, a Brazilian-born man of Australian citizenship who'd been living in Indonesia when they met. Resettling in America, the couple swore eternal fidelity to each other, but also swore to never, ever, under any circumstances get legally married. But providence intervened one day in the form of the United States government....

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia

Around the time Elizabeth Gilbert turned 30, she went through an early-onslaught midlife crisis. She went through a divorce, a crushing depression, another failed love, and the eradication of everything she ever thought she was supposed to be. To recover from all this, Gilbert took a radical step. She got rid of her belongings, quit her job, and undertook a yearlong journey around the world, all alone. This is the absorbing chronicle of that year.

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Readers and listeners of all ages and walks of life have drawn inspiration and empowerment from Elizabeth Gilbert's books for years. Now this beloved author digs deep into her own generative process to share her wisdom and unique perspective about creativity. With profound empathy and radiant generosity, she offers potent insights into the mysterious nature of inspiration. She asks us to embrace our curiosity and let go of needless suffering.

State of Wonder: A Novel

Research scientist Dr. Marina Singh is sent to Brazil to track down her former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson, who seems to have disappeared in the Amazon while working on an extremely valuable new drug. The last person who was sent to find her died before he could complete his mission. Plagued by trepidation, Marina embarks on an odyssey into the insect-infested jungle in hopes of finding answers to the questions about her friend's death, her company's future, and her own past.

Love Warrior (Oprah's Book Club: A Memoir)

The Newest Oprah Book Club 2016 Selection. The highly anticipated new memoir by bestselling author Glennon Doyle Melton tells the story of her journey of self-discovery after the implosion of her marriage. Just when Glennon Doyle Melton was beginning to feel she had it all figured out—three happy children, a doting spouse, and a writing career so successful that her first book catapulted to the top of the New York Times bestseller list—her husband revealed his infidelity and she was forced to realize that nothing was as it seemed.

Keys Shopper says:"Starts out great but takes a sharp right hand turn"

Commonwealth

One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny's mother, Beverly - thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.

The Signature of All Things

This is an audiobook adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert's best-selling novel The Signature of All Things, read in Russian (unabridged) by Marina Lisovets. The novel follows the intriguing life of Alma Whittaker. Instilled with an unquenchable sense of wonder by her father, a botanical explorer and the richest man in the New World, Alma is raised in a house of luxury and curiosity. It is not long before she becomes a gifted botanist in her own right.

A Man Called Ove

Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon - the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him "the bitter neighbor from hell". But behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness.

Small Great Things: A Novel

Ruth Jefferson is a labor and delivery nurse at a Connecticut hospital with more than 20 years' experience. During her shift, Ruth begins a routine checkup on a newborn, only to be told a few minutes later that she's been reassigned to another patient. The parents are white supremacists and don't want Ruth, who is African American, to touch their child. The hospital complies with their request, but the next day the baby goes into cardiac distress while Ruth is alone in the nursery. Does she obey orders, or does she intervene?

The Paying Guests

It is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned; the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in South London, in a genteel Camberwell villa, a large silent house now bereft of brothers, husband, and even servants, life is about to be transformed, as impoverished widow Mrs. Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers.

The Golden Notebook

Author Anna Wulf attempts to overcome writer’s block by writing a comprehensive "golden notebook" that draws together the preoccupations of her life, each of which is examined in a different notebook. Anna’s struggle to unify the various strands of her life – emotional, political, and professional – amasses into a fascinating encyclopaedia of female experience in the ‘50s.

A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel

A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in an elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the count is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel's doors.

The Magician's Assistant

When Parsifal, a handsome and charming magician, dies suddenly, his widow Sabine - who was also his faithful assistant for 20 years - learns that the family he claimed to have lost in a tragic accident is very much alive and well.

In the 10 years since its electrifying debut, Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love has become a worldwide phenomenon, empowering millions of readers and listeners to set out on paths they never thought possible, in search of their own best selves. Here, in this candid and captivating collection, nearly 50 of those readers and listeners - people as diverse in their experiences as they are in age and background - share their stories. The journeys they recount are transformative - sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, but always deeply inspiring.

America's First Daughter: A Novel

In a compelling, richly researched novel that draws from thousands of letters and original sources, best-selling authors Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie tell the fascinating, untold story of Thomas Jefferson's eldest daughter, Martha "Patsy" Jefferson Randolph - a woman who kept the secrets of our most enigmatic founding father and shaped an American legacy.

A Tale for the Time Being

In Tokyo, 16-year-old Nao has decided there's only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates' bullying. But before she ends it all, Nao first plans to document the life of her great grandmother, a Buddhist nun who's lived more than a century. A diary is Nao's only solace - and will touch lives in ways she can scarcely imagine. Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox - possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami.

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry: A Novel

Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is 77 years old and crazy, standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-men-who-want-to-talk-about-Jesus crazy. She is also Elsa's best and only friend. At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother's stories, in the Land of Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas, where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal.

Stern Men

Off the coast of Maine, Ruth Thomas is born into a feud fought for generations by two groups of local lobstermen over fishing rights for the waters that lie between their respective islands. At 18, she has returned from boarding school - smart as a whip, feisty, and irredeemably unromantic - determined to throw over her education and join the "stern men" working the lobster boats.

Julian Fellowes's Belgravia

Julian Fellowes's Belgravia is the story of a secret. A secret that unravels behind the porticoed doors of London's grandest postcode. Set in the 1840s, when the upper echelons of society began to rub shoulders with the emerging industrial nouveau riche, Belgravia is peopled by a rich cast of characters. But the story begins on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. At the Duchess of Richmond's new legendary ball, one family's life will change forever.

Atonement

In Atonement, three children lose their innocence, as the sweltering summer heat bears down on the hottest day in 1935, and their lives are changed forever. Cecilia Tallis is of England's priviledged class; Robbie Turner is the housekeeper's son. In their moment of intimate surrender, they are interrupted by Cecilia's hyperimaginative and scheming 13-year-old sister, Briony. And as chaos consumes the family, Briony commits a crime, the guilt of which she shall carry throughout her life.

A Prayer for Owen Meany

Of all of John Irving's books, this is the one that lends itself best to audio. In print, Owen Meany's dialogue is set in capital letters; for this production, Irving himself selected Joe Barrett to deliver Meany's difficult voice as intended. In the summer of 1953, two 11-year-old boys – best friends – are playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that kills the other boy's mother. The boy who hits the ball doesn't believe in accidents; Owen Meany believes he is God's instrument. What happens to Owen after that 1953 foul ball is extraordinary and terrifying.

As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers.

The Underground Railroad (Oprah's Book Club)

The Newest Oprah Book Club 2016 Selection. Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood - where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned - Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.

Truth & Beauty: A Friendship

The author of Bel Canto, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Orange Prize, and long-running New York Times best seller, turns to nonfiction in a moving chronicle of her decades-long friendship with the critically acclaimed and recently deceased author, Lucy Grealy.

Publisher's Summary

A glorious, sweeping novel of desire, ambition, and the thirst for knowledge, from the number-one New York Times best-selling author of Eat, Pray, Love and Committed

In The Signature of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction, inserting her inimitable voice into an enthralling story of love, adventure, and discovery. Spanning much of the 18th and 19th centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the extraordinary Whittaker family as led by the enterprising Henry Whittaker - a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia.

Born in 1800, Henry's brilliant daughter, Alma (who inherits both her father's money and his mind), ultimately becomes a botanist of considerable gifts herself. As Alma's research takes her deeper into the mysteries of evolution, she falls in love with a man named Ambrose Pike who makes incomparable paintings of orchids and who draws her in the exact opposite direction - into the realm of the spiritual, the divine, and the magical. Alma is a clear-minded scientist; Ambrose a utopian artist - but what unites this unlikely couple is a desperate need to understand the workings of this world and the mechanisms behind all life.

Exquisitely researched and told at a galloping pace, The Signature of All Things soars across the globe - from London to Peru to Philadelphia to Tahiti to Amsterdam, and beyond. Along the way, the story is peopled with unforgettable characters: missionaries, abolitionists, adventurers, astronomers, sea captains, geniuses, and the quite mad. But most memorable of all, it is the story of Alma Whittaker, who - born in the Age of Enlightenment, but living well into the Industrial Revolution - bears witness to that extraordinary moment in human history when all the old assumptions about science, religion, commerce, and class were exploding into dangerous new ideas. Written in the bold, questing spirit of that singular time, Gilbert's wise, deep, and spellbinding tale is certain to capture the hearts and minds of listeners.

What the Critics Say

10 Best Audiobooks of 2013 (Salon)

"Juliet Stevenson's face would be instantly familiar to Anglophiles everywhere, especially those with a penchant for British TV (her films include "Truly Madly Deeply" and "Drowning by Numbers"), but she's also a first-class narrator…. Stevenson conveys the sense that the hand on the wheel is firm and certain and that the reader may lean back in perfect confidence that neither journey nor destination will disappoint." (Laura Miller, Salon)

“Gilbert's triumphant return to fiction is matched by Juliet Stevenson's lyrical reading. Both author and narrator capture the listener from the novel's opening words.” (AudioFile)

"[A] rip-roaring tale… Its prose has the elegant sheen of a 19th-century epic, but its concerns — the intersection of science and faith, the feminine struggle for fulfillment, the dubious rise of the pharmaceutical industry — are essentially modern." (The New York Times Magazine)

"The most ambitious and purely imaginative work in Gilbert’s 20-year career: a deeply researched and vividly rendered historical novel about a 19th century female botanist.” (The Wall Street Journal)

Once again, for the past week, I have been in the enviable position of loving a book so much that I didn't want it to end. I have found Elizabeth Gilbert's name, unfortunately for her, will more often than not pull a rolling of the eyes from someone when I mention it. I have had to convince my friends and family that Gilbert is a fine writer - even if you didn't want to go with her on her self-reflective journey which I found more of a romp than a great work of non-fiction. Nonetheless, if you have this prejudice, don't let it stop you from listening to this excellent book.

Gilbert can tell a good story and this one is a dandy! It spans 80 years but I never lost interest and found myself plugging in to the story in the oddest of places just to hear what came next: the equivalent of a page turner. The characters are vibrant and riveting and the tale is full of life. Juliet Stevenson is one of Audible's very best narrators,truly; if you have never heard her read a book, it is your loss - she is nimble and talented with the change of character. Great story, fabulous narrator - it doesn't get much better than that.

This book was so many things...epic, sad, funny, educational, weird, creepy, and gruesome. A strange description for the life of a wealthy, mostly spinster, botanist spanning the 19th century. Elizabeth Gilbert certainly has an incredible imagination and a beautiful way with words. And, the narrator for the audiobook, Juliet Stevenson, was spot on. The main character was an intriguing mix of brilliance and innocence with real human flaws. And, yet, I just didn't form a bond with her. In addition, I found the communication issues with all the various players, which lead to devastating life choices, frustrating. This is what kept this sweeping and unusual novel from being a 5 star book, for me.

Would you consider the audio edition of The Signature of All Things to be better than the print version?

This narrator is fantastic with voices - while I didn't have the print version, I really enjoyed it as audio.

What did you like best about this story?

I enjoyed the sweeping scope of the story, and the way that all the details of Alma's life matter. We are treated to the careful consideration of how she becomes the woman she does, and how she is sometimes a product of her times, and how she sometimes rises above her times. I missed her when I was finished!

Any additional comments?

I love the way Elizabeth Gilbert's mind works. This book is deliberate and thorough in its examinations and explanations, but I never found it tedious.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the narrator made it an exceptional listen. It's a family saga, told from the daughter's point of view, and recounts her life and adventures through the 1800's. It is also an unusual tale of a strong, well educated woman of this time period, who has maximum freedom to live a life that few women could at the time. I did question some of Gilbert's choices in Alma's life and it's certainly not a happy, fairy tale type of story, but nonetheless, it is well researched and beautifully told.

Alma is such an odd character but you are made to feel a kinship with her almost from the very start. I had a hard time turning off this recording for even short amounts of time - while it is not a fast-paced story, I was intrigued enough to want to stay by Alma's side throughout. This was a unique look at a most memorable character and quite an enjoyable listen.

On the whole, I love the premise and execution of this story--the details and historical context were a true pleasure from beginning to end. And, much as I hate to admit it (I'm one of those Eat, Pray, Love eye-rollers), the overall message was pretty inspiring.

The only thing that bothered me was--excellent as Juliet Stevenson is--why this book was narrated in a British accent. Stevenson's Dutch accents are wonderful, but her American accents seemed all wrong for the period--flat and nasal when educated northeastern Americans like Alma, Prudence, Retta and Ambrose in the early- to late-1800's would arguably have sounded more British than the weird regional twang Stevenson was channeling. I'm being very picky here because Stevenson is such a pro--this is definitely not a huge issue with this book, because the actual dialogue-to-narrative ratio is actually pretty miniscule, but this is an ambitious novel and the heroine and setting are distinctly American, so I definitely felt a little dissonance whenever the native-born American characters started talking.

I love Juliet Stevenson as a performer and normally try to listen to everything she is reading. Saying all that, I had my reservations about this book (due to author who I don't normally like) but purchased it only because of the performer. I was pleasantly surprised in the beginning. The story was developing really well and the first part was down right enjoyable. It went down hill after that. The story is weak, characters are not developed, in short, a disappointment. Only because I love Juliet Stevenson, I will finish the story. Otherwise, I would not bother.

Where does The Signature of All Things rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

One of the best written for sure. Her writing is glorious. The evocation of the time and the botanical research was fascinating. I enjoyed it tremendously. Alma was a fascinating character and I loved all the details about botany about which I know nothing.

What could Elizabeth Gilbert have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Tightened the plotting. It really falls apart after the death of Henry Whittaker when Alma leaves for Tahiti to discover the "truth" about Ambrose. I really had no idea why she went, why she needed to find out what happened to Ambrose, and when she got there and found out the "truth" it was still unclear what the hell really happened to him and why. It was very murky and inadequately explained. The plot had gaping holes. Also, the ending was contrived.

I did love all the details about life in Tahiti at that time and Roger the dog was the most charming character in that part of the book.

What about Juliet Stevenson’s performance did you like?

Her reading was delightful and dramatic and brought the book to life. Her English and Dutch accents were charming. However her American accent was jarring. She couldn't get the American "r" right. I kept wishing she would have just given the American characters British accents and stopped making them sound like they'd taken bad elocution lessons.

Any additional comments?

I found Gilbert's portrayal of Alma's sexual attractiveness almost anti-feminist. Gilbert seemed to "buy" the explanation that because Alma was big and homely no man would want her even though her mother was big and homely and attracted her father who was no slouch (which she actually indicated she knew) So why was Alma, despite her simmering sexuality, not of sexual interest to any man. Chances are she would have had lots of suitors, she was going to be one of the richest heiresses in Philadelphia after all. I felt that Gilbert herself couldn't see men being attracted to someone who looked like Alma.

Gilbert didn't seem to really "get" the sexual magnetism of Ambrose. From "Eat,Pray, Love" I gather that wispy-type men don't appeal to her so she really didn't understand why others were obsessed with him.

At times it felt more like a textbook biography than fiction. There’s a lot of narrative. She did this. She felt that. Those parts could have used a little more dialogue or action. That’s what I’m used to in fiction. Still, it was enjoyable and thought provoking.

The beginning is about Henry Whittaker and how he built his wealth in the plant industry - like growing trees in a new location to produce malaria medicine. He was born in England and later moved to Pennsylvania. The rest of the story is his daughter Alma - following her entire life. She was born in 1800. She had an excellent scientific mind. She studied plants and mosses. She wanted to love a man, but that was unlikely due to her large size and unpleasant appearance.

The “signature of all things” is the idea that God provides plants to help or heal the human body - with clues. For example: the walnut helps the brain and looks like a brain. A plant that helps the liver has leaves that look like a liver. Other subjects in the story are Darwin’s theory of evolution, survival of the fittest, human altruism, and self sacrifice.

There were two sadnesses in the book. One, the story follows Alma to the end of her life. And that by definition is always sad - one’s life ends. The other sadness was something Alma always wanted but never got. I felt sad for her, but there was also a lot of wonderful in this story.

One of the most important things in books is characters. That was great here. It was fascinating how different Prudence and Alma were. Prudence was so odd - and her choices and actions odd. Ambrose was unique - special. Henry’s life was not typical. Alma was interesting throughout. And other characters provided more variety. This is not “we’ve heard it before.” This is a unique collection of characters.

NEGATIVES:I was unhappy and frustrated with one part. Alma asked a man questions about his actions and relationship with Ambrose. Those were important questions. The man did not give direct answers. He gave vague answers and I had to ASSUME things. I did not like assuming. I wanted the author to tell me specifics - what, how, and why things happened. I wanted to KNOW that story, and I did not get it.

There are illustrations in the book that are not available for the audiobook. The publisher should have made a pdf file of these pictures - for audiobook buyers to download.

SEX SCENES:There were several sex scenes of someone pleasuring oneself. Those were briefly described, not a lot of detail. There were also references to men with men; they were told, not shown.

NARRATOR:The narrator Juliet Stevenson was fine. However I never got used to the way she said “Tahiti.” Her pronunciation might be typical British, but every time she said it, I felt off in a way that brought me out of the story.

I did love this book. It's about a woman naturalist at the turn of the 18th century. She's brilliant, spoiled, unlovely and heart wrenchingly brave. It's the heart of darkness for women, done brilliantly.Do read it. Astonishing.